need advice on which vitamins I should take

[veganred]

Hi,

I am a 39 year old vegan female. I want to start taking vitamins to make sure I have all of the nutrients my body needs. There are so many websites but I am looking for advice on which resources will help me decide which ones.

Any suggestions is very much appreciated.

LN

[flvegan]

1. A good multi should be all you need, considering.

I'm vegan and I take Bluebonnet Super Earth Formula vitamins when I take vitamins. Thing is, they're iron-free.

For women, I think NutriBiotic makes a very good one. It's their Ultimate Matrix Spirulina something-or-other.

If you want good advice on this, head over to Vegsource.com and ask in the Vegan forum. I'll also crosspost your question in the DU veggie forum.

Good luck!

http://www.vegsource.com/talk/veganism/wwwboard.html

[Hun Joro]

2. I've been taking SpectroVeg High-Energy Multi-Vitamin by VegLife

but I like to change vitamins once in a while. Here's a breakdown of this multiple: http://www.veganessentials.com/catalog/spectroveg-high-energy-multi-vitamin-by-veglife.htm

I recently found another called Vegan Life which looks pretty good (and is affordable): http://www.veganstore.com/240-------iron.html

[applegrove]

3. Everyone should have 1000 mg of vitamin D.

[LeftyMom]

4. Is there anything you have reason to believe you're missing?

As a vegan you should get supplemental b-12. Many products geared toward vegans are supplemented but you may want to take an additional amount if you don't think you get enough from seitan or nutritional yest or what have you. Needs for this are very low and it's stored in the body so there's generally no need to take this daily- generally the dosages in the supplements are crazily high so weekly or so would be plenty.

Other than that, do you eat a wide variety of quality food, with an emphasis on produce? Are you healthy? Then you don't really need anything, in all likelihood. You could take a multi as "insurance" to be sure that you're getting everything you need, but IMO this is mostly a waste and generally just results in really healthy pee.

If you don't get much sun (or have dark skin or live in a northern latitude) and don't get sufficient supplemental sources (a lot of soymilk has it added) you might want to look into a reasonable dosage of vitamin D or increasing your exposure to sunshine since it's naturally produced by the skin.

edit: Based on your being a female of reproductive age, iron may be an issue. If it is you can bring it up through food (the best way) or supplements (which tend to have uncomfortable digestive side effects. Foods that are good for bringing up iron levels are greens, beans and products derived from beans like tofu, nutritional yeast and blackstrap molasses. I make food I can add the molasses to for a few days before I donate blood to make sure my iron levels are nice and high, it works really well.